BLEEDING INTERNALLY SINCE 1971

Friday, August 23, 2013

It was cold and drizzly outside. The roads were slick, and it was just cold enough to give them a light sheet of ice in certain places... you had to be careful taking the turns in the rain, the tire's on Jerry's car were a little worn, and you didn't want to end up sideswiping a telephone pole.

It was our first fall out of high school. Driving around listening to thrash cassettes, chainsmoking Marlboro reds, looking for weed, and trying to figure out what we were going to do with our lives was a daily occurance. The drops of rain that collected on the rim of the cracked window would try to extinguish my cigarette every time I ashed... the heat blared form the vents, while ice cold drizzle swiped the right side of my face. I would incessantly air drum until my arms were sore, or until we arrived at whatever lame destination we were headed to.
Hanging out at friend's houses who's parents were at work was getting old quick, we would sit there bored out of our minds, numbing heads with stoner fix. The fix just made us more bored, and we would start fantasizing about carreers, wives, and owning homes. We were of the 6% of our classes that didn't go to college, and decided that maybe we should fix that.

So with our new found lust for adulthood, we drove over to Bergen Tech. The local trade school, where dudes like us went to get a nice, american, blue collar carreer. The kind of place you could go and not have to worry about removing the dangling sword from your left ear.

We ended up taking the electrician course. They made great money, and didn't really have to lift heavy stuff... so we figured that would be a great job for a lazy pothead. What we didn't take into consideration, was the massive amount of shit you must learn, as to not electrocute yourself... it wasn't just about plugging the green wire into the green base. Not smoking a ton of weed before class might have helped us retain some of that information as well. I remember sitting in that class thinking, "holy shit I'm stupid."

I may have felt completely retarded, but at least I felt like I was doing something... and my Mom had lightened up off my back a little as well. I attended my first class, and things were looking good for the old young drunk. What I didn't tell anyone was that I had already made my decision to not go back... there was no fucking way I could party the way I did, and become successful at anything other than being a regular at a rehab. Jerry had convinced me to give it one more shot, so he picked me up in front of my house (it was still cold and drizzling), and we headed on our way. That morning we had no weed, and it was a fucking bummer. We searched the entire car for the tiniest roach, called all our friends, but it was dry as fuck. We stopped at the McDonald's drive-thru for some #1's with coke's, and got pulled over as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot.
New Jersey cops are notorious for being the biggest douchebags on the planet. Every bully jock from high school becomes one, and their tiny little penis' show, in the size of the tires on their personal vehicles, and the brut force they treat people smaller than them with... so these wannabe marines couldn't wait to drag 2 long hairs out of a car, in hopes of finding dead bodies and a brick of uncut heroin in the trunk. Unfortunately for them, all they found was Big Mac seeds on the seat... which they completely freaked out about, and threw us against the back of the car, spreading our legs apart, and frisking us. Did I mention that the McDonald's was right next to the trade school we were attending? And that it was break time, and every kid was out on the front lawn watching us get harrassed?
While we were laughing because the cops thought the seeds off the hamburger bun were drugs, and it just happened to be the first time in months we weren't stoned or carrying anything.. this mother fucking cop pulls a half joint out of nowhere!! Holding that shit up like he found the mother load.

We were dumbfounded man... we searched that whole fucking car like 4 times that morning looking for anything to sweep into our lungs, and nothing. This mother fucker just tilts his glasses down, and boom.
Now they really have a reason to be assholes, and throw us in the back of the car. They threw us in the back of the car to write us a ticket, because it was just under whatever amount the drug free school zone law had marked for 100 years in federal prison or whatever bullshit that was, and that was all they could do... the entire school sure did get a kick out of watching us get searched and kicked around though. Neither of us ever went back after that day... and neither of us became electricians.
What we did do, was go to the record store and get the new Slayer...

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

I make four... but as soon as I sink my teeth into the first one, I know I need to throw in 2 more for back up... just in case I need to be a complete piece of shit for the rest of the day.
My son sleeps soundly on the floor in front of the numbing machine, that has obviously done it's job, and Disney danced my poor unsuspecting child right off to dreamland. I take this opportunity to gorge myself with as many White Castle hamburgers that I can pull out of the freezer at one time, and wash them down with the IBC cream soda staple...
This shit's been going on since I was a teenage drunk in New Jersey (way before the word alcoholism was invented). We would pick the least hammered person, pack into their car, and sit in the parking lot of White Castle on rt.17, with a giant white bag filled with these proccessed little heart attacks, and see who could eat the most sliders in one bumper sitting. I'm pretty sure that John Roth still holds the record to this day... that dude ate like 39 of those things in one shot.

6 sliders, 1 cream soda, and 50 push ups... that should make me feel better. I feel that the apple I had yesterday, will balance out this unhealthy lunch. I might walk on my hands around the baby while he's still sleeping for a little while as well... really shake it up.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

My shift was over, they let me cash my whopping $120 check in the store. I stood oustide holding my dirty white apron, waiting for my friend to pick me up. The store was at the bottom of the hill off the main blvd. that we used to cruise down every night when we were teenagers, looking for the heathenous hair sprayed whores that never became cheerleaders, sucking down wine coolers, snapping their gum, and blaring Poison out of their t-topped Iroc- z's...

I had been strung out for so long, that sex with a girl sounded like a nice change of pace... it had been about 2 years since I was even interested in trying to get my dick hard.

I was smelling the deli meat on my fingers while the sun set over the hill, realizing I should go back inside and wash my hands because I stunk like a genoa salami, when all of the sudden, I heard tires screeching over distorted guitars and triggered drums... the pace of my heart was raised about 4 measures, as Mike's blue pathfinder tilted it's way into the parking lot, racing towards me like he was going to barrel me into the white brick wall I was smoking against. He barely stopped the car as I flicked my cigarette into the dusk, and jumped in the passenger seat. We hugged it out, turned up the music, and headed back to his house to prime up for the evenings events. A slight wave of relief had come over me, these were the people I felt safe with, they knew me... I didn't have to pretend to be anyone else, I could just be my idiot self, and they were fine with it.

Nothing completely insane happened that night. Not like AA said it would anyway... they had tried brainwashing me to believe that if I relapsed, I was going to lose an arm, or my Mother was going to get Cancer. I had heard so many horror stories about people drinking after a certain time sober, and killing a family in a car accident, or dying in a bar fight, or drinking and having a heartattack from smoking too much cocaine. I had been in some barfights, and smoked some coke, but I knew, I knew with all my heart, that I could just regress back into my teens, and it would be just like it was in 1988. We could pop the trunk, blare some under produced shitty metal, and try to take out the street lights with empty brown beer bottles... and that was exactly what happened. There was no heroin, no one died in a car wreck, it was just a good hang... I fucking knew I was right.

I remember popping the first beer back at Mike's house, followed immediately by a hit off a joint. The weight I had been carrying on my shoulders while sober, fell off rather quickly as the bubbles eased down my throat, and I coughed up the smoke. I let out a huge belch as my friends welcomed me back, there was no regret man... I was fucking home.

The next day I woke up rather late. It had been a while since I had partied like that, so we were up all night talking about the good old days while we chewed our faces off. I eventually went back to my aunt's house, and she didn't notice that anything different about me. I had gotten away with it! It really didn't matter anyway, I was going back to my old life in New Jersey. I was going to move into Mike's house, get a job driving a truck, and drink and do blow like a normal human being... I was done trying to be a rock star in LA, and there was no fucking way I was hanging out with all those old guido grandpa's in AA, that were telling me working at a Pathmark was humbling, and a great start to a new life. I called my sponsor and told him that I had drank, but it was ok... I was fine. I thanked him for everything, and told him that I wouldn't be requiring his services any longer. Before we hung up he said, "see you soon kid." I was so offended by this, all that did was justify my feelings about the losers in AA and those judgemental douchebags even more. He had no fucking clue how I felt, or how I was going to run this from now on... mother fucker I got this, fuck that dude.

I was going to spend one more night at my Aunt's house, then move all my shit into Mike's and start over. I had convinced her that it was all going to work out, so she could tell my Mother and everyone else. Better it came from her than from me... everyone was so tired of hearing about how it was going to be different this time. Except me obviously. Right then the phone rang, it was for me. It was this dude Paul from AA. Older guy, balding, red moustache, kinda looked like a shitty version of an undercover cop. I was so over AA and the people in it by this time, that I almost hung up on him as soon as my aunt handed me the phone. I figured what the hell, let's laugh while this dude try and talks me into coming back to a meeting.

In a shaking voice he asks me if what he heard was true, had I relapsed? Yes Paul, I am not in AA anymore I said, but I thanked him for calling and told him good luck with all his AA stuff. He was new in the program too with 90 days or something.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

After losing a two year battle with Los Angeles, I found myself back in New Jersey...

It was the summer of 1996, and the lightning bugs were out in full affect. I had come back to the east coast with a full blown intravenous heroin habit, and had eventually landed myself on my Aunt's couch in Hasbrouck Heights. Where there was always a CB scanner flickering red lights, while the muttering of a truck drivers lonely voice would occasionally break through over some static, talking about a cop hiding in the weeds a few miles down the road.
There were bearskin rugs and statues of vikings resting on the greenish/yellow carpet that floored the entire house. It was my very first morning off heroin, and I came to curled up in the fetal position on the small, cold, leather couch in the den. Mtv news was on, and as my eyes focused a little and my gut gave a screaming need for a syringe, I was informed that the keyboard player for The Smashing Pumpkins had overdosed and died, as did the singer for Sublime, and Scott Weland was once again arrested for possession of heroin. This definitely didn't happen all in one day, but it felt like it did that morning.
My Aunt had called her Brother (my Father), who was sober, and pretty much non-existant in my life. All I remember is my Aunt asking me to hobble into the dining room to the big, wooden, viking like table, and my Father sitting there. He had been informed that I was on heroin, and to drive me to a detox. I don't remember the ride to the hospital, I don't remember the feelings involved... I just remember being dropped off at the Newark University Hospital, where the detox was on the AIDS ward. It's funny nowadays to listen to rich little douchebags whine about having to make their beds while staring into a sunset off a coast in Malibu. My first detox experience was much much different..
They didn't have the meds that they do now to control the virus, so there was just transvestite after transvestite, shuffling by my door, pushing a pole on wheels with a pissbag attatched to it, covered from head to toe in open sores, and about to drop dead any day.
I got dropped off on a Friday night, and since it was a county run facility in the murder capitol of the world, there was to be not a Dr. in sight until monday morning. So I laid on that ice cold, plastic bed for 48 hours straight... crying, puking, and shitting myself. I passed the time by snorting a few xanex that a tranny had slipped me, and writing a sexual inventory.
Monday had finally arrived, and since I was still young and spry, I had just about completed the detox, and convinced everyone there that I would be much better off back on that cold leather love seat in my Aunt's den... so my Aunt came and picked me up.

Arnie was my first sponsor. The minutes seemed like hours, as I stood in the parking lot of The Macaroni Grille on Rt.17 after a friday night meeting with my friends, them all telling me to, "just go up and ask him." I felt like I was asking the hottest chick in high school to the prom, I didn't know anything about being clean or sober, I didn't know he basically had to say yes, I didn't know anything except how to get high... and I was obviously even horrible at that. Arnie was exactly like Steve Martin's character in "My Blue Heaven" but with a George Hamilton tan. He even sounded just like him...
I finally got up the nerve to walk over to him, and the other 5 x-junky assholes with 25 years clean he was standing with, who laughed at all us newcomers every time we shared, and told us that they had spilled more out of the spoon then we ever shot into our veins. I asked Arnie in a semi-stutter if he would sponsor me, he just kinda winced at me, gave me his card, and said, "yeah kid, call me in the morning..." I literally felt like the hot chick said she would go to the dance with me, when I walked back over to my friends they all hugged me like I had just been jumped into some weird cult... and in a way I kind of just was.

So I started attending meetings on a regular basis, making friends, and gaining a little weight back. My Aunt was starting to trust me more, and calling my Mother with good reports. I had gotten a job in the deli section of the Pathmark just down the hill from my Aunt's house, and things were finally starting to look like they were going to be alright. I hadn't not been dopesick in a while, and it felt kind of amazing to wake up and not have my teeth be on fire.
At around 28 days or so, I had gotten my first paycheck. I had also run into one of my old drinking buddies from my youth at my deli counter. He was telling me how everyone missed me and wanted to see me, and that I should come hang out that night. It was a friday, and I knew what went on in my old town on a friday... these were the people I went to high school with, who didn't get all strung out on dope. Yeah they were fucked up, but they were all for the most part functioning alcoholics, do a bump on the weekend warrior types. I figured fuck it, I could handle one night of hanging with the old crew right? I mean... there sure as fuck wasn't going to be any dope around, and THAT was my problem... not drinking. I convinced my Aunt to let me go, and also said I would most likely be spending the night. I already knew I was going to get drunk, and I was fucking down for it. I had been strung out on dope for so long, that I missed just being a drunk idiot with my friends. I missed being the life of the party. The only problem, was that it wasn't 1986 anymore... and I had crossed a line I did not know existed.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

I have always been bored with the business of it all. I
would always rather be the one who deals with all the pleasures of life.

Deeming myself the “George Hamilton of punk rock,” and
living a hammering lifestyle has put me on a less than permanent couch tour for
most of my life. Occasional scraps of togetherness have been forced onto me by
my occasional will to succeed, but for the most part I have lived off the
generosity of my friends and family my entire existence. The days rage with
handouts as I grift from womb to womb.

Most would call this a lonely soulless way to live, and to
be completely honest, when I am actually awake and totally aware of my
surroundings, it sucks so bad that I would rather eat a rusty razor blade
sandwich on moldy bread, washed down with a Chlamydia milkshake, then have to
sleep on one more of my friends couches, or ask for a ride to wherever I don’t
even really want to be anyway.

When I actually
take a step back and look at the “stuff part” of my life, the materialistic
section of it all, it makes it real easy to get depressed… but not enough to
actually do something about it. I don’t have a license… take the bus. I don’t
have an apartment because I’m “on the road a lot…” so I crash at friends houses
and apartments. I have always been either a great starter but never ever
finished anything really, either that or I just completely half ass a whole
thing… complaining the entire time about nothing.

I could be on a leer jet with the Rolling Stones, getting my
dick sucked by an 18 year old virgin, all while shooting non addictive
speedballs with Keith Richards, as he shows me how to play “Moonlight mile” on
the acoustic guitar that he is going to give me when he’s done… I would still
find something to complain about, and by the way I only said 18 because it’s
illegal to bang 16 year olds, but it would probably be more entertaining to
show a 16 year old supermodel how to… fuck, I’m just gonna stop right there
with that one before I start getting all Polanski.

“Oooh Jason… you’re soooo honest in your writing… we love
you.”

Go fuck
yourself, this is the only thing that keeps me alive 80 percent of the time. I
don’t write for you, I don’t write for anyone but myself. That’s why it’s so
God damn repetitive.

Ok…. so I may not be on a private jet with the Rolling
Stones, but…. I am on a huge 747 with Slipknot and Stone Sour, on our way back
from Brazil, one band for which I played bass for 2 nights ago and rocked the fuck
out of over 100,000 people. There isn’t an 18 year old girl blowing me, but
let’s just say the girls like to travel in pairs down there, and just sit in
your hotel lobby. The absolute true meaning of “shooting fish in a barrel….” and
I’m sitting here complaining… see? I wasn’t fucking lying.

I could take a million dollar scratch off ticket to Vegas
and turn it into a coke dusted Ziploc bag and a sticky shot-glass covered in
fruit-flies while driving Biz Markie’s Ferrari right into the back of a cop car
with a family of four strapped to the hood. I actually won the $100 roll at the
cee~lo game backstage before Slipknot went on last night, so with the 4 people
with balls big enough to drop a bill on one or two dice rolls… I got my room
service bill for the weekend handled.

Nothing fills the hole completely… Nothing. It’s just a
temporary fix, but then again everything is a temporary fix. Nothing is
forever.

If I got my head out my ass far enough to live comfortably,
I think I might have a shot at being kind of happy. Definitely happier than I
am or have been ever in my life. It’s like…. almost there.

I was on stage a few months ago in front of 60,000 people,
feeling like a complete fraud. I wanted to blow my head off the entire time… so
much for a dream come true fixing you right? So I come back to Los Angeles and
start going to the place that I can get my “medicine” talking about my stupid
whiney feelings and what not, and low and behold… playing in front of 100,000 a
few months later and not wanting to blow my head off, at least not till the
show was over. I totally enjoyed the show though, and didn’t feel like a total
piece of shit till like 5 minutes after I got off stage…. Progress.

I’m flying over Venezuela as we speak (I type). I have a few
hundred dollars in my pocket, and a few more in the bank. I just watched Arthur
and cried like a little baby when Hobson died so I know there is a feeling in
there somewhere… but none of it is enough. I will sit here thinking about how
my back hurts and my neck is killing me, how I will never be an Arthur and fall
in love with a Naomi, and how there is 3 hours and 45 minutes left of this 10.5
hour flight from a weekend people only dream of. The type of shit I used to
watch on television when I was a kid, the type of shit I still watch on
television today. Barstool dreaming becoming a reality isn’t enough for this
little manboy. I need something bigger. I’ve had something bigger. I just
refuse to accept that this Great Spirit actually exists most of the time, and
that I am the same as all the rest of the whiney AA faggots. I tell everyone I
am the same, but deep down I know I am different… and unfortunately, that will
eventually kill me. It will kill me while I’m not even paying attention… because
I’m rarely ever paying attention.

The Great Spirit is in the adrenaline… not the “jump out of
a plane” adrenaline, the kind of adrenaline that gets you killed. Like stealing
some shit from a store kind of adrenaline, fucking your friends wife kind of adrenaline,
the kind of adrenaline that makes you feel so shitty… you don’t even want to be
alive. Once you get to the other side of this behavior is when you can start
enjoying the Great Spirit.

For guys like me…

The Great Spirit is the stink on a stripper pole, It’s
finding a vein and hitting it on the first try, it’s an all access backstage pass… My Great Spirit has been a
mirage for years.

In light of everything going on in the world, people with real problems and such, I don't feel right about feeling this sorry for myself, I don't feel right about it at all... but unfortunately, at the moment, I don't want a way out... and it gets worse as the minutes pass. When I was a kid I would pout in my room for hours, sometimes days on end. Just wanting to be left alone, I don't want anyone asking me "what's wrong" or "am I ok?" I just want to keep my head in the dirt until the worms eat my brain just enough so I don't have to think anymore.
Knowing a shot of whiskey and a little bump of cocaine would make everything worse is the brutalist of truths right now... I don't want to pray, I don't want to meditate, and FUCK helping people. I rely on many to get by, and when times like these are sprung upon me and I can't do it alone... I want to blow my fucking brains out. Knowing everything is going to be ok is fucking annoying. I want to rip the paint off the walls and scream with my shirt off, but I will eventually have to repaint when I get out of the psych ward. I haven't spoken a word in hours... nor do I plan on doing so for the rest of the night. I can't even take my ball and go home, because I can't afford one.
I heard a girl making an amends to another girl in the Starbucks, and I wanted to throw my coffee at them... I think I need a break from the cult. The parrots peck hard at my ears, droning the same crap day after day. Whining about solution and how amazing their lives are now that they are sober. Listening to conversations outside meetings makes me cringe, and I want to kick people in the back. I want to kick myself in the back mostly.
I want muscles, but I don't want to do push ups. I don't want to get lung cancer, but I refuse to quit smoking. I want a successful relationship... no I don't.
I want my head to just be quiet for 6 minutes, so maybe I can take a nap without tossing and turning, waking up with all the pillows on the floor and a forehead full of sweat. I want my chest to not feel like it's in a vice grip 24 hours a day. I don't want to force myself to live in this shit world I create in my head anymore...

Saturday, September 22, 2012

I walk through the door exhausted, hoping there is at least one slice of cold, hard, pizza in the grease spotted box barely hanging off the kitchen table. To my surprise there is one and a half slices left... ripping into the crust first, the brittle dough cracks off into a million pieces, falling onto my bare chest, I ignore it and keep shredding. The coagulated cheese sticks to the roof of my mouth like a load of cum in a shower drain, as I slowly swallow the artery clogging man food, chewing aggressively and fast, because I can't wait to choke down one last cancer stick before bed.
My hair always looks best at the end of the night, after running my fingers through it a few times while the smogless night air of Hollywood runs down the back of my ears through the open windows, it starts to look like I've been surfing and doing sit ups all day. My only thought after a night of checking unstyled little bastards drivers licenses all night, is that I should have paid more attention in school, or any attention for that matter. If these little assholes only knew how bad I wanted to kick them across the street while their girlfriends screamed for help... and I would just laugh, while quickly becoming out of breath because I'm so out of shape.
Should I put the headphones on and watch the first season of All in the Family? Or should I jerk off to the thought of something that happened 19 years ago. Sally Fields Shirley Temple hair is a total turn off to me for some reason, so I think I'll just watch that and go to sleep with barely any shame tonight. Skinny Rob Reiner with a full head of hair freaks me out when I see it, and all I can think about is that Archie is dead now... his rotted corpse lay in a deep grave in Westwood Memorial Park somewhere, while I try to digest coagulated sperm from the shower drain, and fill my lungs with chemical gifts from the Badlands...
Goodnight you fucking assholes.
Jason Christopher

Thursday, September 20, 2012

I'm trying too hard at not trying hard enough, and I can't say the right thing without coming off wrong. You laugh and tell me how funny I am, as I shove peanut butter under your eyelids. Spinning through life like a bird with one wing.
No one has the proof. No one has the fortune cookie with the golden ticket... sorry Charlie.
I've gotten the apple with the worm in it, right after I found the goose that laid the golden egg. Either time didn't make a shit of difference. The end of the rainbow is up your ass while I shoot gold coins down your throat. Biting my nail to the blood trying to figure out where the pain is coming from, while the love flies over me like an unattended car alarm at 3am...
Smoking American Spirits will give me healthier cancer, so I can shit on your words that rest in the back pocket of your skinny jeans. Your mustache is so ironic.
I will take nothing to my grave but my hatred for love, and the last thing my Father ever said to me, and he will die the slow death of happiness in his military bunkered
boxer shorts, with his daughter's first prize tiara clutched at his cancer ridden chest.
I stole my own record off the internet, I've already paid for it dearly with my soul anyway.
Only men live here. Men younger than me. That don't sit down to pee.
I am craving substance. Not just a plane ride to an autograph, and a lonely hotel room that speaks no english.
I don't want dubstep ruling my unborn child's existence.
No one ever tells the world why the doctor has no face anymore... rock and roll is regurgitated and sold as Lil' Debbie snack cakes to crackheads in a bodega used for a Columbian drug front. You fucking assholes can't make The Wall... you cant remake a classic film and possibly think it will be better... someone tell Kanye West that James Brown is dead.
I can't possibly go on much longer with this much freedom.

Trying to make every smoke ring perfect.
Not to trip over an impaired sidewalk.
Bowels of maggots fest at your feet.
Your toes curl in the sand.
Destiny is but a symptom.
The long hot winter awaits.
You trip. Listening to The Band.
Mother's womb is iced over.
Your lungs burn with envy.
Chopping the spinach with your teeth.
The sink drips loud with fear.
Cocking your head back with confidence.
Hanging yourself with the Christmas wreath.
Death awaits the moving.
Cracks fill every hole.
Time is but a symptom.
Your toes curl in the sand.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

It all started in the back of the room. These clouds weren't meant to handle this kind of sun, but they forged their way through anyway. I had real high hopes for my low self esteem as I pounded my soul into the ground. I didn't realize at the time what would become of all this, I just knew that "becoming" was all that mattered. We trampled around the sunset strip for weeks, devouring anything in front of us like two five year olds in front of a pile of chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't save myself if I tried, so I just went with it the only way I knew how, no damage control in site for miles.
There seemed to be a litter of dead butterflies around me every time I woke up, and my head was stuck in the sand of the mattress. I was surrounded by beauty, life, and success, and all I could do was wrap myself even tighter, into my cocoon of madness.
I felt nothing for anyone or anything, not even myself. At first I was able to act out the love and kindness like I was starring in a Broadway show, but in time, it slowly washed away like a stone in a stream... nothing left but a pebble of a man, sitting in the dark, buried under water, trapped between the two boulders of hate and shame.
Now the light shines bright in my life, but is hidden behind sunglasses of controlled fear. I take them off when I feel safe enough, but will look past your face like I'm waiting for someone more important to walk into the room. Now the bus is full of people, starstruck from the life I complain about, and I feel like I am throwing a big party in my parents house that's gotten out of control, but I can't tell anyone to leave.
I want to leave, but I have nowhere to go, so I put the sunglasses back on and let everyone know they can politely go fuck themselves while I dive back into the sand to watch the butterflies die...